REVISING OSCAR WILDE

In signing, a recent bill calling for prison reorganization. Governor Smith has accomplished for the state of New York what the Legislature at Boston refused only a few weeks ago to consider for Massachusetts. The new plan which "provides for a modern industrial system in prisons under as competent a Superintendent as private industries demand", is probably one of the most progressive steps in punitive legislation ever taken in the United States. If successfully administered, it will mark the end of an era in prison management which has lasted in this country since the days when the only goal in Connecticut, for example, was an abandoned mine, entirely beneath the surface of the ground.

Evidently the reforms recommended by countless examining boards and committees are little by little coming into actual existence. The dreary descriptions penned by Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde, among a score of other forces working to the same end, are apparently effecting their purpose with a slow but steady persistence. The idea of a convict being a mental invalid and of a prison being properly a remedial hospital for his cure which would have aroused nothing but blank amazement in the minds of Judge Jeffrey's and his contemporaries, is accepted at the present day by most people with only momentary qualms. Teaching a man a trade and allowing him to work for a living while under confinement is a much better way of moulding his future reactions to society than forcing him to brood in solitary confinement for a period of dull and fruitless years.

It is of course impossible to remove entirely the atmosphere of punishment, and it is not certain that such a procedure would be wholly desirable. The criminal, even though he is to be regarded as an invalid, must be brought to realize that although society pities him, it also disapproves. What can be done is to eliminate the spirit of vindictiveness that has existed, and to substitute for it one sane, helpful cooperation, with every influence working for a beneficial result.